Shoe Outsole Made Using Composite Material

ABSTRACT

Provided are, among other things, systems, methods and techniques for making a shoe outsole and to shoe outsoles made using such techniques. In one such technique, a sheet of composite material is produced by extruding a base material together with a sheet of fabric material. The sheet of composite material is then cut into an outsole component, and a shoe outsole is fabricated using the outsole component.

This application is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 13/543,858, filedJul. 8, 2012, which in turn is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/898,550, filed Oct. 5, 2010, which in turn is a division ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/408,702, filed Mar. 22, 2009 (nowU.S. Pat. No. 7,827,640), which in turn is a division of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/751,581, filed May 21, 2007 (now U.S. Pat. No.7,516,506), which in turn claimed the benefit of United StatesProvisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/803,351, filed on May 26,2006, and titled “Sheet Material with Embedded Fibers or FabricMaterial” and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/896,315,filed on Mar. 22, 2007, and titled “Composite Sheet Material”. All ofthe foregoing applications are incorporated by reference herein asthough set forth herein in full.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention pertains to footwear and, more particularly, toshoe outsoles and to methods for making shoe outsoles.

BACKGROUND

A variety of different techniques for making shoe soles exist. Examplesinclude injection molding the sole as a unitary piece, bonding layers ofdifferent material together to form the shoe's sole and use ofvulcanization techniques.

In addition, a variety of different processing techniques have been usedto provide the shoe's sole with particular characteristics and/or toobtain advantageous import duty rates that typically apply to shoeshaving an outsole in which at least 50% of the ground-contacting surfaceis made of a natural material. Examples of such processing techniquesinclude molding fabric or other natural materials into the shoe'soutsole and flocking the shoe's outsole with natural fabric fibers.

However, improvements in the structures of shoe outsoles, as well as theproduction techniques for making them, remain desirable.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention addresses this need by providing shoe outsoles andtechniques for making shoe outsoles which utilize a composite sheetmaterial (e.g., fabric or fabric fibers embedded into a base material).

Thus, in one aspect the invention is directed to systems, methods andtechniques for making a shoe outsole and to shoe outsoles made usingsuch techniques. In one such technique, a sheet of composite material isproduced by extruding a base material together with a sheet of fabricmaterial. The sheet of composite material is then cut into an outsolecomponent, and a shoe outsole is fabricated using the outsole component.

In another, a base material is extruded into a sheet of base material.Then, individual fibers are deposited onto a surface of the sheet ofbase material before the sheet of base material has fully hardened. Thefibers are pressed into the surface of the sheet of base material inorder to form a sheet of composite material, and the sheet of compositematerial is cut into an outsole component. Finally, a shoe outsole isfabricated using the outsole component.

The foregoing summary is intended merely to provide a brief descriptionof certain aspects of the invention. A more complete understanding ofthe invention can be obtained by referring to the claims and thefollowing detailed description of the preferred embodiments inconnection with the accompanying figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following disclosure, the invention is described with referenceto the attached drawings. However, it should be understood that thedrawings merely depict certain representative and/or exemplaryembodiments and features of the present invention and are not intendedto limit the scope of the invention in any manner. The following is abrief description of each of the attached drawings.

FIG. 1 is a right side conceptual view of a system for making acomposite sheet material according to a first representative embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a sectional view of a sample composite sheet materialaccording to the first representative embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 3 is a right side conceptual view of a system for making acomposite sheet material according to a second representative embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates a sectional view of a sample composite sheet materialaccording to the second and third representative embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 5 is a right side conceptual view of a system for making acomposite sheet material according to a third representative embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a right side conceptual view of a system for making acomposite sheet material according to a fourth representative embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a sectional view of a sample composite sheet materialaccording to the fourth representative embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 8 is a right side conceptual view of a system for making acomposite sheet material according to a fifth representative embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 9 illustrates a sectional view of a sample composite sheet materialaccording to the fifth representative embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 10 illustrates the cutting of a shoe outsole from a sheet ofcomposite material.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT(S)

Generally speaking, the present invention pertains to a composite sheetmaterial that has a plurality of individual fibers or a piece of fabricmaterial embedded within a non-fibrous base material, to techniques formanufacturing such a composite sheet material, to the use of such acomposite sheet material in the construction of a shoe outsole, and toshoe outsoles made using such techniques.

In this regard, it often is desirable to manufacture a shoe sole havinga composite surface, including some areas in which one type of materialcontacts the ground and other areas in which another type of materialcontacts the ground. For example, the first type (e.g., the shoeoutsole's base material) might be a synthetic rubber or other polymerthat ordinarily is used as a material for forming a shoe's outsole,while the second type might be a plurality of natural or syntheticfibers or a piece of natural or synthetic fabric. In the presentdisclosure, the term “fabric material” is used in its normal sense ofreferring to a woven or non-woven material that resembles cloth, withits individual fibers bound together, while the term “fibers” refers todistinct particles or strands that generally are not bound together.

The techniques of the present invention can be applied with respect toeither individual fibers or fabric material. Such individual fibers andfabric material collectively are referred to herein as “fibrousmaterial”.

Specifically, the present invention contemplates two general categoriesof manufacturing such a composite material. In the first, an example ofwhich being illustrated in FIG. 1, both a non-fibrous material (the basematerial 5) and a fibrous material (fabric sheet material 7 taken fromroll 8 and guided using guiding rollers 9) are fed together through anextrusion device 10 (e.g., a conventional extrusion device thatordinarily is used for manufacturing sheets of non-fibrous material).Various kinds of fabric sheet material 7 that may be used are mentionedabove. The base material 5 can include, e.g., polyvinyl chloride (PVC),acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), thermoplastic rubber (TPR),ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), a polyurethane elastomer, natural orsynthetic rubber, synthetic leather, any polymer or any type of plastic.

A conventional extrusion device 10 typically is used to fabricate longobjects of a fixed cross-sectional profile, such as plastic sheetmaterial, by pushing and/or drawing liquid or semi-liquid materialthrough a die of the desired profile shape. As noted above and as shownin FIG. 1, the present embodiment of the invention modifies theconventional process, in part, by feeding fabric sheet material 7through the extrusion device 10 together with the liquid or semi-liquidbase material 5. As the composite sheet material 20 exits extrusiondevice 10, it typically is carried along a conveyor 23, cooled orotherwise allowed or forced to harden, and then cut to the desiredlength. One or more rollers 25 also may be used for additional shapingand/or for facilitating the cooling process of the composite sheetmaterial 20 that is produced by extrusion device 10.

According to the present embodiment of the present invention, where afabric material 7 is being used to produce the composite sheet material20, the fabric material preferably is fed through the extrusion dieand/or underneath the roller 25 together with the liquid or semi-liquidnon-fibrous base material 5, so that the resulting material 20 has thedesired composite composition. Preferably, the fabric material 7 isinserted underneath the liquid or semi-liquid non-fibrous base material5, so that once the non-fibrous base material 5 hardens, the desiredcomposite sheet of material 20 will result.

In the foregoing embodiment, fabric sheet material 7 is embedded into apreferably non-fibrous material 5. An example of the resulting compositesheet material 20 is illustrated in FIG. 2. As shown, the top layer ofcomposite sheet material 20 is made of the base material 5, and thebottom layer consists largely of the fabric sheet material 7, with thelayer of base material 5 ordinarily being significantly thicker than thelayer of fabric sheet material 7.

However, in alternate embodiments, the sheet of fabric material 7 ispressed onto the non-fibrous base material 5 after the non-fibrous basematerial 5 has exited the extrusion die and/or roller 25 and is still ina liquid or semi-liquid state, i.e., in an uncured state. One example ofthis is shown in FIG. 3. In this embodiment, the sheet of fabricmaterial 7 is laid onto an extruded sheet 27 made entirely of basematerial 5 only after the base material 5 has exited extrusion device10. According to one sub-embodiment, extruded sheet 27 is approximately6-7 millimeters (mm) thick. Thereafter, fabric material 7 is pressedinto the surface of extruded sheet 27 using roller 25, thereby formingcomposite sheet material 30. According to one sub-embodiment, compositesheet material 30 is approximately 4-5 mm thick. As shown in FIG. 4, thecomposite sheet material 30 has a bottom layer of base material 5 and athinner top layer into which the fabric material 7 has been embedded.

FIG. 5 illustrates another of the embodiments noted above. Here, theextruded sheet 27 of base material 5 first passes underneath roller 25,e.g., for shaping and/or cooling. Only after that is the sheet of fabricmaterial 7 laid on top of extruded sheet 27 and then pressed into sheet27 by roller 28. However, essentially the same composite sheet material30 results from this process as resulted from the preceding process. Incertain sub-embodiments, extruded sheet 27 is approximately 6-7 mmthick, and composite sheet 30 is approximately 4-5 mm thick.

Alternate embodiments use individual fibers, rather than a sheet offabric material 7, in a technique similar to that described above. Instill further embodiments where individual fibers are to be embeddedinto the non-fibrous material 5, the fibers may be pre-mixed togetherwith the liquid or semi-liquid base material 5.

Thus, in certain embodiments, individual fibers are sprinkled orsprayed, during the shaping process or afterward (e.g., on the conveyorbelt before the non-fibrous material has hardened or has fullyhardened). For example, in one representative embodiment where two ormore consecutive rollers are being used, the fibers are sprinkled orsprayed between the rollers. Such an embodiment might be implementedwhere, for example, only one side of the resulting composite sheetmaterial is desired to have a composite surface, and/or one wishes to besure that the individual fibers form a significant part of the surfacearea for the resulting composite sheet.

An example of such a technique is shown in FIG. 6. Here, a sheet 42,consisting only of base material 5, is extruded by extrusion device 40.Accordingly, this portion of this embodiment is identical to certainconventional extrusion techniques. A first roller 44 then smooths and/orpartially cools sheet 42. Thereafter, a number of individual fibers 45(or, in certain alternate embodiments, other particles, preferablyparticles of natural materials) are deposited onto the upper surface ofsheet 42 by device 46. In this regard, device 46 may be implemented,e.g., as a sprayer or as a sifter. One example of the latter is acontainer with a sieve for a lower surface, where the container isshaken or vibrated in order to cause the fibers 45 to the sprinkled downonto the surface of sheet 42.

Finally, roller 48 presses the fibers 45 into the surface of sheet 42,resulting in a composite sheet 50, and in some cases simultaneouslyproviding additional cooling. As shown in FIG. 7, sheet 50 has a lowerlayer that is formed of base material 5 and a thinner upper layer thathas fibers 45 embedded within it. In certain sub-embodiments, extrudedsheet 42 is approximately 6-7 mm thick, and composite sheet 50 isapproximately 4-5 mm thick.

The second general class of embodiments contemplated by the presentinvention involves the impression of a plurality of individual fibers ora sheet of fabric material into the surface of a pre-manufactured sheetof non-fibrous material. An example is illustrated in FIG. 8.

Preferably, a roll 70 of such pre-manufactured non-fibrous base sheetmaterial 72 (e.g., made from any of the types of base material 5mentioned above) is first obtained. For example, such sheet material 72might have been previously fabricated using a conventional extrusionprocess. A sheet of fabric material 75 (e.g., drawn from a roll 77) isplaced on one side (typically the upper side) of the non-fibrousmaterial 72 (e.g., using guiding rollers 78), and the combination of thebase sheet material 72 and the fabric sheet material 75 is passedunderneath one or more heated rollers 80, which apply heat and pressure,partially melting the surface of the non-fibrous material 72 and causingthe fabric material 75 to embed into it, resulting in composite sheetmaterial 85.

A similar technique can be applied by coating the non-fibrous sheet ofmaterial with individual fibers (instead of fabric sheet material) andthen passing the combination underneath heated rollers 80. Stillfurther, depending upon the type of the non-fibrous sheet material 72,chemical or radiation techniques may be utilized to temporarily softenthe surface of the non-fibrous material so that the sheet of fabricmaterial or individual fibers can be embedded into it, or even pressurealone can be used to embed the fibrous material (e.g., fabric sheetmaterial 75 or individual fabric fibers) into the non-fibrous material72.

In any of the embodiments discussed above, the extrusion die and/or anyof the rollers may result in relatively flat surfaces for the resultingsheet material or instead may be shaped so as to form or impress athree-dimensional pattern, such as a tread pattern for embodiments inwhich the resulting composite sheet material is to be used in a shoeoutsole.

Also, in alternate embodiments the fabric or fibrous materials describedabove may be replaced by various other kinds of materials. For example,sheets or individual particles of leather, reconstituted leather, cork,paper, corn husks, hemp, other organic materials that have long fibers(e.g., for the purpose of adding strength to the finished product forwear improvement), any other plant material, or any other natural orsynthetic material (or mixture of materials, such as a compositecompound or mixture of organic materials) may be embedded into a sheetof base material 5 or otherwise used to form a composite sheet materialusing any of the techniques described above.

In some of the embodiments described above, the rollers provide acooling effect. In other embodiments, e.g., where other types ofmaterials such as one where uncured natural or synthetic rubber is used,the rollers may be heated in order to effect or assist in curing.

Still further, although the embodiments described above contemplate asingle layer of fabric or fibers in a single layer of base material 5,in alternate embodiments, multiple (e.g., alternating) layers of suchmaterials may be used. In order to produce a composite sheet material ora finished article having such multiple layers, the techniques describedabove may be repeated, or individual composite sheets may be joinedtogether, e.g., by gluing, using a vulcanization process or in any of avariety of other ways.

Generally speaking, in the foregoing embodiments only a single side ofthe non-fibrous base material is embedded with fibrous material.However, in alternate embodiments both sides of the non-fibrous basematerial are embedded with fibrous material, which may be the same onboth sides or different fibrous materials may be used for the twodifferent sides.

In any event, once a sheet of composite material has been manufacturedin accordance with any of the foregoing techniques, it can be cut intoany desired shapes and used for any desired purpose. As noted above, onesuch purpose is to fabricate the outsole of a shoe. Thus, as shown inFIG. 10, a pair of entire shoe outsoles 100 has been cut from a sheet ofcomposite material 102. Alternatively, one or more portions of a shoe'soutsole may be cut from composite sheet material 102 and used infabricating a shoe's outsole, e.g., by combining such portion(s) withother elements. For instance, in one such embodiment, pieces of a shoe'soutsole cut from composite sheet material are attached to a largersection of the shoe's outsole using a vulcanization process.

Additional Considerations

It is noted that the selection of the fibrous and non-fibrous materialsfor use in the methods of the present invention preferably depends uponthe desired characteristics of the resulting composite material.Although certain specific examples of materials have been providedabove, any other materials instead may be used.

Several different embodiments of the present invention are describedabove, with each such embodiment described as including certainfeatures. However, it is intended that the features described inconnection with the discussion of any single embodiment are not limitedto that embodiment but may be included and/or arranged in variouscombinations in any of the other embodiments as well, as will beunderstood by those skilled in the art.

Similarly, in the discussion above, functionality sometimes is ascribedto a particular module or component. However, functionality generallymay be redistributed as desired among any different modules orcomponents, in some cases completely obviating the need for a particularcomponent or module and/or requiring the addition of new components ormodules. The precise distribution of functionality preferably is madeaccording to known engineering tradeoffs, with reference to the specificembodiment of the invention, as will be understood by those skilled inthe art.

Thus, although the present invention has been described in detail withregard to the exemplary embodiments thereof and accompanying drawings,it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousadaptations and modifications of the present invention may beaccomplished without departing from the spirit and the scope of theinvention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited to the preciseembodiments shown in the drawings and described above. Rather, it isintended that all such variations not departing from the spirit of theinvention be considered as within the scope thereof as limited solely bythe claims appended hereto.

1-16. (canceled)
 17. A method of making a shoe outsole, comprising: (a)obtaining uncured base material; (b) pressing a sheet of fabric materialinto a surface of the uncured base material, thereby forming a compositematerial; and (c) fabricating a shoe outsole using the compositematerial, wherein the fabric material is disposed at a surface layer ofthe composite material.
 18. A method according to claim 17, wherein thebase material comprises at least one of: polyvinyl chloride (PVC),acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), thermoplastic rubber (TPR) andethylene vinyl acetate (EVA).
 19. A method according to claim 17,wherein the base material comprises a polymer.
 20. A method according toclaim 17, wherein the sheet of fabric material is comprised of a naturalfabric material.
 21. A method according to claim 17, wherein the uncuredbase material is a sheet that has been formed by extrusion.
 22. A methodaccording to claim 17, wherein the sheet of fabric material is pressedinto the surface of the uncured base material using a roller that alsoimpresses a three-dimensional pattern into the base material.
 23. Amethod according to claim 22, wherein the three-dimensional pattern is atread pattern of the shoe outsole.
 24. A method according to claim 17,wherein the shoe outsole includes areas where the fabric materialcontacts the ground.
 25. A method according to claim 24, wherein theshoe outsole also includes areas where the base material contacts theground.
 26. A method according to claim 17, wherein said fabricatingstep comprises cutting the composite material into a shoe outsolecomponent.
 27. A method according to claim 17, wherein the base materialis non-fibrous.
 28. A method according to claim 17, wherein the sheet offabric material is a natural fabric material.
 29. A method according toclaim 17, wherein the sheet of fabric material is approximately 4-5millimeters thick.
 30. A method according to claim 17, wherein theuncured base material is approximately 6-7 millimeters thick.
 31. Amethod according to claim 17, further comprising a step of passing theuncured base material underneath a roller prior to pressing the sheet offabric material into its surface.
 32. A method according to claim 17,further comprising a step of shaping the uncured base material prior topressing the sheet of fabric material into its surface.
 33. A methodaccording to claim 17, further comprising a step of laying the sheet offabric material on top of the uncured base material prior to pressingthe sheet of fabric material into the surface of the uncured basematerial.
 34. A method according to claim 17, wherein the uncured basematerial is a sheet.